Sheffield Tigers’ home advantage is vital

Nigel Pearson

Tigers’ Arthur Sissis feels he can play a key role at reserve in their play-off quarter-final first leg against Newcastle at Sheffield on Thursday.

The 21-year-old has made a steady return after rejoining the club, equalling his highest tally of the year at Owlerton in the League Cup loss to Somerset. A first leg lead is crucial ahead of the trip to Brough Park on Sunday. He said: “There’s no easy meetings in the Premier League, but as our scores against them this year have shown, Newcastle are one of the league’s harder teams. We haven’t got the best record at their place but we can improve and gaining an advantage from our home meeting will be important.

“At home, I feel a lot more comfortable and I’m pretty pleased with how things have gone on the whole. I’d have liked to have scored more points here and there but I can’t complain.”

He added: “You have to be on it every single meeting, and if you’re not at your best then you’ll struggle.

“Hopefully we can all be on it against Newcastle because we don’t want our season to be over yet.

“With all the injuries and bad luck we’ve had, I think we’ve done really well just to make the play-offs in the end.

“But now we’re here, we want to go all the way but it’s going to take a massive team effort.

“We need to all work together and Thursday is another huge night for the team.”